Should people be in charge of their own needs?
Everybody has needs, that’s not news to most of us. You could even say our society is specialized in satisfying those needs, especially the bodily. A myth circles through the ages. It tells us we are all responsible for our own needs, we mustn’t be dependent on others to have our needs met. And so we find ourselves raising our children to be independent from a young age…it’s for their best, right?
Well actually there are needs that cannot and must not be met by ourselves. Companionship is a need, simply wanting to share something with someone you love, too. Everyone has the need to be acknowledged as an autonomous being and to be appreciated as an individual. And sometimes we feel the need to curl up and have someone else call the shots. Especially Mummy and Daddy.
When we acknowledge the needs of our fellow human beings, life begins to revolve around needs. Everything comes down to a need – I was ratty because I was in need of sustenance, he was sulking because he didn’t feel appreciated, she was angry because someone came in the way of her autonomy, he was frustrated because his needs weren’t being acknowledged…
And we see the strategies with which people seek to still their needs clearly – video games still the need for entertainment, reading or TV stills our need for learning, relaxation or entertainment, raiding the fridge stills our need for sustenance, turning the table upside down and pretending it’s a boat stills our need for play and creativity…
There are needs that aren’t so straight forward, though, for instance when a child of three or four years climbs up a climbing frame and starts crying, claiming he or she cannot get back down. Many parents begin to rant about how “of course you can get down” and a careful description of where to place their hands and feet etc. It’s true – of course the kid can get down…if he wants to! But the fact is there is a need he is seeking to have met. Is it the need to relinquish responsibility for himself for a while? Does he need to feel babied? His he actually questioning his abilities or having a little panic attack and needs to be saved?
Attempting to force the child to climb down by himself is extremely disrespectful and will lead the child to question your care and distrust you. If our child says he is scared and cannot climb down, we should show our respect and prove we are trustworthy by climbing up that ladder, letting our kid grab onto us like a monkey and climbing back down. Something will be stilled; it doesn’t matter what need it is.
As parents we do have the responsibility for whatever our children cannot carry. They are learning to deal with their personal responsibility (for anything that immediately impacts them) and will sometimes wish to hand it over. It is up to us to navigate their behavior, which is a communication that can be tricky to understand – a tantrum here, a thrown toy there, silence as a reply to our questions or the classic ‘doing the opposite of whatever you are trying to get done’. In such moments we must take a minute, find calm in ourselves and our actions and connect with our child with our full attention; any other reactions hinder an insightful outcome and deny us and our child a positive solution.
The need for autonomy is essential (for children as for adults) and is often insufficiently satisfied when artificial ‘boundaries’ are set, when parents limit and force children to do things; even when parents focus on needs and tend a loving relationship to their children, there are still stressful days in which the time and space for free-play, movement or calm are lacking. This lack can be seen when children say "no" to things we try to do, like dressing them, cleaning their teeth or walking in THIS direction. On the other hand, though, a child who experiences themselves as autonomous may be wishing for more guidance when he or she cannot (or doesn’t want to) decide between the options we are giving – “do you want lasagna or pizza or noodles or rice for dinner?”
This is why there cannot be one way for ‘raising’ children. Children cannot be raised to be independent – they are independent when they want to be and are carried when they wish to be. Just as they grow physically, their self-esteem and self-trust mature, too. Their attachment to their care-givers, this innate attachment must be trusted in order for this growth to happen naturally, which means we must meet the needs they have instead of burdening them with things they cannot or do not want to handle at that moment.
It’s common knowledge that human beings are social beings. This means we are happy to meet each other’s needs! It’s rarely about being ‘responsible’ for each other’s needs, but more that we take care of each other and respect each other. When autonomy, respect and trust are a given, you will see that even our children are happy to give us a hug when we require closeness, turn the volume down if it is too loud for us, tidy up with us when we require order and let us finish our phone call before answering their question.
However, children, having yet to learn to control their impulses, cannot be expected to meet our needs. Expecting this of them is naïve and estranges us from them – we shouldn’t demand our partner to give us a hug, drop what he’s doing to be at our beck-and-call or put our need above theirs, much less should we demand these things from our children. At times when children ‘need a minute’ or had to be reminded that the baby is sleeping yet again, we must model acceptance, flexibility and, above all, understanding for other people’s needs.
When we relinquish restricting methods of child-raising we are left with relationships. We acknowledge the individual with his or her developmental capacity, needs and wishes, and reply to these.
I invite you to take your liberty and join the revolution!
